The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian returned to sabotaging Sulvorath, and returned to Palendurio in her disguise as Micael. She kept off the grid until it was late enough in the cycle that the other travelers would have trouble moving against her, then revealed Eclipse to the pontiff and archbishops and demanded their aid. When Pontiff Oculo and the archbishops went down to check the holy vaults, they found the Sword of the Fourth Prophet was indeed missing from the sarcophagus. It was hard to deny she was a Prophet after that.

That was also important information. Mirian had wondered if she could perhaps bind several of the Prophet's swords to her, but it seemed that once an object was traveling through time with her, it was subject to the same rules she was. It made sense; there was only one Mirian. There was only one sword.

Jei was able to evade assassination for most of the cycle, but eventually succumbed. However, Professor Torres was able to send her a report on a new development: the Akanans were mass producing a divination spell engine, and using samples of her hair and skin left in her dorm room. They had made copies of the device both in Torrviol and Cairnmouth, moving them around in carts. Torres had gotten most of the blueprint of the device from her contacts among the artificers in Torrviol, and deduced the rest of the design in concept, if not in the exact glyph sequences.

Annoying, she thought. If Sulvorath kept that up, he might even realize she wasn't in Cairnmouth.

Before the cycle ended, though, she tried something. She unlocked the third holy vault, and took both a regular pen and a scribe's pen. She disabled the runes around the Holy Pages, then wrote a single letter: M. With her scribe's pen, she made a simple viroc glyph next to it, which would serve no magical function alone, but was a foundational static glyph that would remain stable for several years without interference.

***

The blueprints Torres had sent proved useful. Mirian worked in the Academy crafting center to create her own spell engine that was conceptually similar. However, instead of linking her hair and dead skin to a series of divination spells, it linked it to a simple kinetic pull spell. This allowed her to vacuum up anything that had once been a part of her body, cleaning the apartment of any trace of her. Thankfully, her innate spell resistance prevented the device from pulling her into it.

In its place, she took hunks of bog lion hair from the one she killed in the catacombs and had Professor Seneca help her with the chemistry that would dye algae-green hair black. She'd also taken scrapings of the bog lion's hide, magically dehydrated it, then powdered it. She sprinkled it around her bed and over her clothes, then repacked her room so it looked like it usually did.

Have fun with that, she thought as she left.

***

Mirian primarily focused on her leyline detectors. She'd analyzed the runework the Luminates were using to protect their relics and had isolated the sequences that would shunt most of the arcane magic around the devices, meaning she could use her original idea of measuring the arcane energy. She stayed at different inns this cycle, just to make sure she didn't fall into any predictable patterns. The tables in her room quickly filled with books on arcane physics and blueprints. When she ran out of room, she tacked up the drawings and diagrams she needed on the walls. She wondered what anyone who walked in would think.

She discovered, as she inquired about for parts and arcane inks, that several of the artificer guilds had great solutions to her problems and pre-fabricated artifice that would speed the construction quickly. They refused, however, to share unless she joined their guild. That would require her credentials as a full arcanist, which she didn't have, and someone in the guild to sponsor her, which would basically involve a combination of bribery and flattery.

Mirian broke into their building at night instead, finding it much more convenient. And the fact that I can break into your heavily warded building this easily makes me qualified for your guild, you chaff-brained morons, she thought as she carried away a stack of blueprints and a pseudospell synthesizer.

Construction of the devices took far more than her makeshift workshop in her room at the inn. She found an unaffiliated artificer's shop and paid her handsomely to use the tools and space there, and paid her extra for a vow of secrecy. She implied that the local guilds didn't like her so that she wouldn't suspect she was really hiding from whatever network Sulvorath had access to here.

By the 20th, she had five devices built. Mirian deployed one each to the north and south of Palendurio, then rented a train car to ship the three others (and their load of fossilized myrvite fuel) down to the villages southeast of the capital so she could set them up for better triangulation. She and her parents had passed through the area when she was young, so the dense farmland clustering around village centers looked familiar enough. Plenty had changed, though. It seemed every house now had its own spell engine, churning out light and heat. The world is changing, she thought. Or, rather, it was.

On the 26th, she used the ongoing riots to gain easy access to an Akanan merchant's shop who was selling artifice imported from Vadriach. She stole a device that could create an illusionary representation of the data on a carved map of Baracuel. The artificers had been selling it to expedition teams who were either delving the Labyrinth or hunting myrvites in the wilderness, so she had to adjust the glyphs to match what she was taking readings on, but the device was actually quite ingenious, and equally complex. It actually had an automatic calculation machine inside it, which she thought was a wonderful idea.

Akanan artifice has reached a level above anything we're doing here, she realized as she examined it. I need to get over there, not just to figure out the conspiracy, but to learn from them.

She hurried to craft another set of runic protections that would prevent the device from being exploded by the incoming antimagic wave on the 1st. Then Mirian went back down south, hoping the worst of the shockwave would dissipate before it reached that far, but was ready with her arcane inks and scribe pen for if it did.

Despite the distance and the protections, the map was damaged slightly by the Palendurio breach. Mirian carefully went through with an arcanometer and redid any glyphs that were weak or cracked. Once she did that, it was a matter of linking each device to the map.

The spell engine on the train had been damaged, so upon her return she helped repair it so it could go north again. An hour out from Palendurio, they came to a break in the tracks where an arcane eruption had melted the steel into a puddle. By then, it was near evening, so Mirian just hopped off the train and levitated her way to the next device, rested and drank a mana elixir, then levitated to the last one.

When the map lit up with the illusionary projection, she couldn't help but grin. It had actually worked. She had real data on the leyline explosion.

For two days, she sat down with an abacus and a stack of paper, running through different numbers and double-checking the triangulations. The second detector turned out to be giving junk readings; despite all the protections, the shockwave had knocked out two key glyphs in the sequence, not destabilizing it enough to break, but making the data it collected useless. Once she discarded that from the illusionary map, the results lined up a lot better with what she'd witnessed.

She played the results through the map several times, fascinated as she watched the energy surge as it developed beneath the ground. That has to be below the predicted tenth level of the Labyrinth, she thought. At least a kilometer deep. Right before it burst open, though, it was like the energy was crawling towards something.

Except, it erupted before it got there, then spread out violently all at once. Then, a huge portion of the energy seemed to jerk away, moving north so it was between Cairnmouth and Palendurio.

It was the path of the energy as it advanced on Palendurio that interested her most. If it's an arrow, it's pointing… there, she thought. Graphing a straight line was something young children learned to do; she could easily map out a predicted path of the energy. She drew the line over a paper map she had of the city. She memorized the linear equation and the intercept of the line where it crossed the Magrio River. That greatly narrowed the places she would have to cover.

There was another strange reading, one she couldn't quite understand. North of Alkazaria, there was a powerful pulse of arcane energy, but unlike the arcane eruptions and leyline breaches, the energy didn't fade entirely. For the rest of the day, right up until she'd turned off the devices to retrieve the data, that arcane energy lingered. I'll have to investigate that at some point, she mused. But for now, it was too far away, and she had enough to do.

She headed for the holy vaults.

Mirian brought food and water for Everad again, but couldn't look him in the eye. She still felt wracked with guilt, even though he didn't remember it, even though he never would remember it.

When she got inside the third holy vault, though, she didn't need to break the runic wards around the Holy Pages. She could simply read the top page:

A viroc glyph, and beside it, the letter M.

It's the perfect tool, she realized. With that… and I know from the pontiff it can be erased as well. I just need to find relicarium.

Well, there was only one place to look for that. But if she was going to make progress in the depths of the Labyrinth, magic alone wasn't going to help her. She either needed to kill two greater labyrinthine horrors inside an antimagic field, or run the world's deadliest obstacle course.

To destroy a mountain… she thought.

***

It was finally time to enact one of her long-term plans.

Sulvorath was leaning heavily on Specter's contacts, Specter's knowledge, and Specter's authority. If there was one thing that would set him back more than anything else, it was removing her from Torrviol at the start of each cycle.

Mirian had been destroying the registrar's records each cycle so that Sulvorath had no easy way to know who was part of the Academy's student body. He'd no doubt have some familiarity with who belonged in the Academy, but he hadn't been attending it for six years, nor had he gone through as many cycles as she had in Torrviol. As far as he knew, Micael Nezzar would just be another student.

And, she already knew that he never paid attention to Valen, and that Valen had an open bed in her room. If the registrar screwed up and accidentally placed two students of the opposite sex as roommates after the tragic fire in their office, well, that sort of thing might happen.

She knew how to defeat Specter's orichalcum spell resistance, and now had her own. She had a weapon that couldn't be taken away, and could probably match anyone but Archmage Luspire in spellpower. She had a disguise that could only be revealed by someone carefully analyzing her soul with a focus, and only the priests and Specter could manage that.

She also could now make sure the priests were on her side.

After going through her usual routines and working on her spellbook and some of the preliminary artifice for most of the day, she went to go see Valen.

"Hey," she said, barging into her room just after dinner. "How would you like to take part in a secret operation to take down a corrupt Deeps agent and two foreign spy cells? Also, I already know the answer is 'yes.'"

"Sounds boring," Valen said, because she liked being difficult. "Hard pass."

"All spywork is boring. But what if I told you it also involved kissing me while I'm disguised as a boy because I'm using forbidden celestial magic? Also, I want to practice sword-fighting you. With no safety enchantments."

Valen reached for a smarmy response, then closed her mouth, then opened it again, then closed it.

"You look like a fish," Mirian said, raising an eyebrow.

"…with, like, rapiers? Or did you have another sword in mind?" Valen finally said.

"Maybe I'll let you decide," Mirian told her. "Anyways, I'll need to stay the month as your roommate."

The other girl gawked at her, now totally disarmed. "Who are you and what did you do with Mirian?"

Mirian had mercy and explained.

***

That evening, she found Nicolas in the usual spot. "Surprise," she said, levitating down next to him.

He gaped at her. "You can levitate?"

"And I know about your childhood love of cows, and we've sworn to be allies despite the… difficulties," she said, then explained the basics of the time loop and their agreement. Once she'd done that, she said, "And I'll need Nurea to contact the Syndicates in Cairnmouth on your way down."

"On our way down?"

"Sulvorath is going to contact your dad about the conspiracy in Palendurio," she said. "I need to know what he's saying, and how your dad plays a part in all this." The Sacristars were now a minor noble house, but they still had contacts and allies among enough people that it could be a critical source of information.

Nicolas made a face. "Are you sure I can't just mud wrestle a bog lion?" He gave a loud sigh. "I'll… I'll do it. I mean, I guess I have to, right? I've probably told you… about… you know."

"You haven't. Not really," she said.

"Oh," he said. "I guess I should tell you. It's just… hard." Nicolas stared out at the lake. "Must be strange for you. I hardly know you, but you know me. And that gap, it's just going to get bigger, isn't it? So. My dad. Marduke Sacristar. He's always been… critical of me. Like, 'me' is not enough, he always treated me like clay to be modeled, only I was never the right shape, despite all his squeezing and molding. And it's worse because… well, Nurea is cool, but she always took his side. Knightly duty and all that. And my mom… yeah. So there was never anyone to turn to. It was such a relief to be free of him when I went to preparatory school. I made up some horseshit about learning how to run my own household just so I could move from the estate to an apartment. He'll be pissed when I show up, but I can spin it as critical to my development as heir."

"And you can let him know the shape of the Palendurio conspiracy," Mirian said, and explained the outlines of it. As she was talking, she realized that Nicolas didn't hold the attraction she'd once had for him. He was still handsome, still nice to talk to. She had trouble putting her finger exactly on what had changed.

Or maybe that's the problem, she thought, after she was done talking. Only one of us changes. It didn't bother her with Valen, because what was between them was more of a game than a relationship. But with Nicolas, she had liked his maturity, his honesty, and his confidence. What she really wanted was someone who could change with her. It wasn't even his fault—but she could see inside herself that the flame had cooled.

She didn't particularly like sending him off to a miserable task, but that was the only real way forward.

It was that or hide from the truth, and the true nature of things had a way of revealing themselves anyways.

She said her goodbyes, and got the second day of preparations ready.

On the 2nd, Mirian started by building the artifact she'd decided to call the 'divination defeater,' and replaced her hair with the bog lion hair. She also created a dozen seeds of chaos that would take the train down to Cairnmouth then deploy themselves, with one last engine deployed to the registrar's office where it would explode that night.

Then, she went to talk with Priest Krier.

"The sanctum is closed," one of his acolytes told her as she entered.

"You will make an exception for a Prophet," she said, and summoned Eclipse to her hand. The Fourth Prophet's blade glimmered in the dark halls far brighter than the dim firelight illuminating it.

The acolyte stared at the blade, then did something between a walk and a run into the back. He reemerged with Priest Krier in tow.

It didn't take long for Krier to compare Mirian's new sword to his tome on the holy relics. As soon as he did, he took a knee, and the acolytes who had gathered followed. "Sacred One," he said, prostrating himself on the floor.

"Rise," Mirian said, only feeling a little bit weird about having people bow like that to her. "I need the aid of the Luminates of Torrviol. First, keep my existence silent. This phase requires keeping to the shadows. Second, you must be on the lookout for two necromancers. They are using bindings and marks on their souls that resemble the blessings of the Ominian, but are twisted. If you see them, note the time and location, and I will get them from you later. They are too dangerous to engage, and unfortunately, members of the Torrviol Guard are compromised."

She paused for dramatic effect, then said, "I should also warn you that the necromancer in question is impersonating Adria Gavell. The Praetorians are not to be trusted either."

There was a gasp in the room.

"What were your normal procedures for contacting Adria?"

Priest Krier blinked. "We always simply told the guard, and they found her for us."

"Of course," she said. "I'll handle them. You understand your duty?"

"Yes, Sacred One," he said.

How remarkably different than how you first treated me, she thought, and departed, letting Eclipse dissolve back into her soul.

She talked next with Respected Jei, who would go on to pass her message on to Professor Torres, then visited someone she owed a great deal to.

Mirian headed over to Castner Hall.

"Professor Marva," she said. "May I come in?"

"Hmm? My office hours just ended," they replied.

"I know. This isn't about classes. To be only a little dramatic, this is about the fate of the world. Lecne and Arenthia send their regards," she said.

Marva's eyes went extremely wide, and they instantly said, "I don't know who those are."

Mirian grimaced. "Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you. They taught me soul magic already. In a different timeline. Can I explain?"

Marva still looked unsettled, and had their hand near their drawer, but nodded.

She quickly went through the nature of the time loop, and how she'd taken her illusion classes, had their help in the Battle of Torrviol, and how she'd figured out they were using soul magic.

"…and it saved me, because without your help, I'd still probably be dealing with a debilitating curse."

"This is all… a bit hard to believe," Marva said.

Mirian grit her teeth. "Yeah, I know. How would you like me to demonstrate proof? I could do some runework in front of you. Name Lecne's hobbies and discuss Arenthia's personality. I have some active soul-bindings on me right now that are slowly turning me into a male—you could look at those. I could levitate us both around campus for a bit. Oh—I could summon the Sword of the Fourth Prophet. Do you think that would do it?" Mirian closed her eyes. "Sorry. I've explained all this shit a thousand times to a hundred different people. Listen, I don't need you to make a decision immediately. Talk to Professor Jei; she already believes me. What I need from you is instruction on soul manipulation. My changes take place over the course of days. You know how to accelerate the physical changes so quickly it looks like you're casting an arcane illusion spell. Can we meet later to set up a time for lessons?"

Marva furrowed their brow. "I can do that. But… I don't see how this even leads to solving the leyline problem. You should be talking to someone like Professor Viridian, or High Wizard Ferrandus."

"I need lessons in soul manipulation to rapidly shift disguises so I can better thwart the other time traveler who wants to burn Torrviol to the ground and blow up the Divine Monument." And so I can get rid of whatever memory curse I got, she thought, but did not say. "That in turn will help with another… project. And that project will help combat the leyline destabilization a lot. But more than that, if I can figure out… well, I don't want to tell you everything. Sorry. As far as I know, Sulvorath and Specter never torture you for information in any given cycle, but I can't risk any part of my plan being revealed to them."

She saw a flash of fear in Marva's eyes again. I need to get better at talking to different kinds of personalities, Mirian thought. I keep over-sharing. It's just so frustrating. Am I being too honest? I don't like lying to people, especially people I consider friends.

"I can help," they said. "Just… give me until tomorrow to figure out my schedule. Can you come by during office hours?"

"I can. By tomorrow, I'll be fully Micael." Then she added, "And, apologies if I sound frustrated or overbearing. It's been… a lot, these past years. But thank you, for the help you've already given me. Without you, I don't know what would have happened to me."

"Yes, of course," Marva said, somewhat subdued. They got a distant look in their eyes, and Mirian took her leave.

Mirian finished running her errands, picking up a male school uniform from a tailor shop and some new supplies.

That night, she used her levitation wand to sneak up to the top of Bainrose Library, using celestial magic to look for any people entering town. There was too much activity, even at a late hour, with students moving about in the woods and fishermen moving about the lake. She flew back down, using an illusion spell to move through the dorms, then joined Valen in her room. As per her usual practice, she scribed several anti-divination wards, much to the other girl's amusement.

As she drifted off to sleep, she heard the distant sounds of the town's fire bells ringing as the registrar's office caught fire.

Tomorrow, she anticipated Sulvorath would arrive.